Bloggers R Us

The task of blogging which is now one of the ruling weapons on internet has become popular from 1990. Almost all the web surfers have now become web bloggers blogging on several websites.With this increase in demand for blogging and hosting, there started the demand for blogging and hosting services to cater to various needs of the users. We would familiarize in this article about the features of Blogger and WordPress along with comparing them edge to edge.Blogger and WordPress both have their footprints since the initial boom for online blogging has become popular. They now have a tremendous growth in the blogging market. The one main feature both Blogger and WordPress provide in common with the blogging services is the management of free accounts with them.Wordpress is ahead in providing VIP hosting apart from the simple free accounts that it offers along with Blogger. This facility would be attractive for many bloggers who themselves might need it for various purposes.For example for those users who expect heavy traffic load on their sites with nearly 500000 page views just in a single month this special facility called VIP hosting will help a lot. These VIP accounts would start at $500 along with initial set up fee of nearly $600.With the help of premium features that WordPress has for its users, one would find it easy to add a particular domain to the account. Along with this, there are other facilities like extra storage space for the user to provide more information regarding his products.CSS customization available with WordPress makes the users site look attractive. Greater video capabilities will provide clarity of information for the customers when they see to the videos provided on the site. The main ability of the WordPress is to allow 35 users to be assigned on to one single blog.Now that we have a better understanding of WordPress let us now shift to understand Blogger facilities too. Blogger allows free blogging with an interface which is easy to use. A free blogger name is provided which includes your name in framing the domain name like yourname.blogger.com.Blogger has splendid features like customizable templates, video uploading facility and very impressive simple single click photos. As services are managed by Google, by which accounts creation can be done quickly and easily if a user has an existing account with Gmail. Owners can make money out of their creation, for the implementation of various ads through Google Adsense.Dozens of themes being offered by WordPress along with its integrated statistics and various sidebar widgets would attract the customers towards owning a domain with them. One facility that is missed by blogger which WordPress has in it, is the ability to facilitate for more than single page. WordPress can facilitate the creation of pages like, about page, home page, and contact page, so on.Finally altogether from this discussion, WordPress seems to be superior to blogger though blogger has its own demand for simplicity.

Blogs(A.K.A. – Weblogs) are the BIGGEST thing going right now online because of there many uses for both the Web Surfer and the Internet Marketer.
But, you probably already know that so for the purpose of this article I’m not going to talk about ‘Blogs’ in general because I’m sure you’ve read enough about them by now and/or you already have a few kicking around the net.
What I’m going to share with you Right Now is something I discovered while surfing the net researching Tag and Ping tactics and Social Bookmarkleting because I run more then a few blogs online and wanted to find out how I could take advantage of this whole Tag and Ping and Social Bookmarkleting thing with as little effort as possible.
If your new to this whole Tag and Ping game then let me give you a quick summary of what a Tag is and what a Ping is so there’s no confusion as you continue through this article.
Tags – Tags are simply category names and are selected by you using keywords around whatever niche your blogging about and are included within each post you make, that is, if your blog is set up for Tags.
Ping – By Pinging your letting the weblog trackers(like Technorati for example) and the search engines now that your blog has been updated with fresh content and is ready for their spiders to come and crawl your blog for indexing into their databases.
This is where the – Tags – come into play for your blogs posts because as soon as the social bookmarkleting service spiders your blog, it will list your post under that given Tag you chose. So it’s very important you choose your Tags wisely.
Now that you know the basics of the Tag and Ping concept, lets now get into what I discovered so you too can incorporate it into your blogging mix, whether you use WordPress, Blogware or Blogger as your blogging software.
But before I do, lets first talk about what Social Bookmarkleting is for a quick minute.
Social Bookmarkleting, just in case your not quite sure, is simply a collection of your favorite articles, blogs, music, restaurant reviews, photo’s or whatever it is that you find interesting on the web and is saved into your public profile through whatever Social Bookmarkleting service you choose.
Technorati, Digg, del.icio.us, furl are just a few Social Bookmarkleting services available on the web which is why I’m writing this article because I discovered a COOL plugin that you can use on WordPress, Blogware and Blogger blogs that will connect you to over 50+ social bookmarkleting services through one click of your mouse giving your blog audience multiple options to share your blog post or blog with the world which in turn will increase your traffic and popularity of your blog.
Lets face it, adding 50+ social bookmarkleting buttons to your blog would be a VERY tedious endevour so why not take the short cut for a change and install this plugin and let your reader make his or her choice.
To take advantage of this plugin right now go to Socialize-It.com ==> http://www.socialize-it.com
This plugin is absolutely FREE and only takes minutes to install on your blog.
Make sure your choose your Tag wisely as well. I recommend you go to Technorati – http://www.technorati.com – and look at the TOP 100 tags since Technorati is the BIG Daddy in the blogosphere.
(TIP: The bigger and bolder the Tag the more popular the topic is.)
After you’ve done that, start Blogging.
The more posts you make, the more pages you’ll generate with the “Socialize-It” button helping spread the word about your blog and getting your blog added in whatever Social Bookmarkleting service database your blog reader is apart of.
I hope you found this article helpful and take action on what you have just learned.
Good luck!

WordPress and Blogger are the two dominant internet blogging systems. So it’s only natural that there be heated debates over which one is better.When people want to create a blog they basically have a choice between WordPress or Blogger.  And often times because they don’t want to waste any time figuring out which one is better, they just go with the one that they found out about first or heard about somebody else using.  But as they go around looking at other blogs they start seeing and hearing about other people using the “other” blogging software and start to wonder why they choose that service.  If your creating your blog for business purposes it’s especially essential that you understand the advantages and disadvantages between the two. Blogger….Advantages• You can put Google Adsense into your blogs. • You can promote anything that you want, any way that you want, as long as it’s not illegal or against there rules and regulations• It’s free!Disadvantages• Unless you have your own blog template or know how to design one your not going to get a top notch looking blog. • Adsense and other ads add a lot of clutter to pages and this can turn off visitors to your blog. • Very basic software that you can’t do much with unless you have advanced blogging technical knowledge.WordpressAdvantages• Has great templates to choose from so even if you don’t know much about designing blog you can still make a nice looking one. • Very User Friendly• Excellent for use on private domains• It’s freeDisadvantages• Your not supposed to advertise products using wordpress, but they will allow you to advertise a few links if you don’t over do it.• You can’t personalize your blog to much unless you have your own hosting and domain.And the winner is…. WordPress!!With the exception of adwords, WordPress offers everything that blogger has and more.  And if you really want to have ads on your blog you can join some ad networks.

To learn how you can make money using blogs visit – http://www.seegarsproducts.com/bloggingonsteroids

If you do some surfing around the web, you will probably find that a majority of people advocate WordPress than Blogger.

Do you know why?

WordPress has an almost rabid following because it is built for ‘Web 2.0′. It comes with the inherent ability for users to utilize third party plugins, as well as tiny add-on programs called widgets. These add-ons enhance the functionality of the blog and make it better looking. If you do a search on Google for WordPress widgets, you may come back with a few days worth of data.

So if WordPress has so many cool plugins and widgets, then why do I recommend Blogger. The answer is not complicated. I am looking for traffic from the search engines and in particular visitors from Google. Since Google owns Blogger, I think we would be simple minded not to make an educated guess that they give Blogspot.com blogs more search engine oomph. To me that is what it is all about.

Also, it is so simple to produce blogs using Blogger. Even a person with no prior blogging knowledge can have a blog set up within 10 minutes. It is also extremely straightforward to add Google AdSense to Blogger blogs, while it can be a challenge on WordPress blogs. Once you have gotten your AdSense publisher ID, you just click a link to add an AdSense block to your blog and you can start earning income.

So the selection is clear-cut, if you want a more aesthetically pleasing blog, then go with WordPress. If you want a blog that you can throw up easily and quickly, get boat loads of traffic and make some quick AdSense money, then go with Blogger.

There are now some excellent software tools available, that let you set up and administrate multiple Blogger blogs from one central location. This makes it much simpler to monetize your efforts with Blogger.

There’s a war going on in the blogosphere, and it has nothing to do with bloggers dissing each other on their respective websites. The war is about control of the blogosphere by several great, many good, and tons of terrible blogging platforms. The average newbie now has “too many” options to choose from, and the battle for blogging supremacy is hotter than ever.

At my website and blogs, I’m always asked the question “Is WordPress better than Blogger?”. The answer, of course, is “Yes”. But to really understand why, it’s important to look at both blogging platforms side-by-side and see which one you really need.

You also need to understand that there are different versions of WordPress, the earliest now termed as “WordPress” at WordPress.org, and the hosted version similar to Blogger now termed “WordPress.com” which is of course available WordPress.com. Only the latter comes with free hosting on a sub-domain account. We’ll discuss this in Part 2.

For Part 1 of this article, we look only at the self-hosted version of WordPress. Here’s the comparison scale:

1) Ease of Set-up And Use

Yes, it’s much easier to set-up a blog with Blogspot.com and get your own Bloggger account. You can be done in 10 minutes flat. Once you’re set-up you can start posting immediately. If you want to add a designer’s touch to your blog, there are also tons of blogger templates available for free.

Installing WordPress however can be a major headache if you don’t know what you’re doing. Since you’re going to host it on your own account, you’ll need to download the installation files, upload them to your server, set-up a database, and run the configuration script.

However, if you know which hosting account to get, you can choose one with Cpanel included. With Cpanel, you can do a one-click installation, upgrade and removal of your WordPress platform.

2) Customization & Advanced Use

Blogger doesn’t allow categories. You can’t sort your articles into different focuses, unless you know how to hack the platform. With WordPress, not only can you add categories, you can also display each category differently on your main page. In fact with the correct plugins you can even turn your WordPress into a magazine-like portal.

Publishing with Blogger can extremely furstrating. It can take forever to post articles, especially if you’re making changes to the entire website. With WordPress, publishing is much faster, although if you load your system with all kinds of bells and whistles it can be just as frustrating.

With a Blogger account, you can get additional features like “Shout Boxes” that improve interaction on your site. You can also get pretty themes and nifty little tools that you can add to the core template files. However, that’s as far as you can go with Blogger.

With WordPress however, the sky is the limit. As cliche as that may sound, not only can you get themes, additional “plugins” and advanced tools, you can also extend WordPress to far beyond just a blogging platform.

The talk today is about using WordPress as a complete, user-friendly Content Management System or CMS. Unlike complicated predecessors like PHPPostNuke, B2, Mambo or even Joomla, WordPress is user friendly. Plus, the availability of source codes in this open-source system coupled with a strong community makes it possible to use WordPress as an article management system, classifieds system, direct-selling site and even a paid membership site.

4) Copyrights and Ownership of Content

I started with Blogger and I won’t say that it’s bad. But after a while I started to get frustrated with Blogger, and here’s why: Google Owns Your Content

Google has the authority to shut down your account without warning if they don’t like what you’re blogging about. You don’t have absolute control over your own blog. With WordPress, you own the domain name and the blog is hosted on your own account. You have full control over your content.

With the self-hosted version of WordPress (not WordPress.com), you’re free to write about anything you want, and use the software in any way you want. Yes, Blogger allows you to publish to your own domain, but they still own the database that holds your content! Don’t forget that!

5) Search Engine Optimization and Traffic

There’s this propaganda that since Google owns Blogger, they tend to favor Blogger accounts. I won’t say that this is illogical, but from my experience, there’s no such favoritism.

I’ve heard as many stories of getting indexed fast and ranking high in search engines from both WordPress and Blogger users. As long as the content is good, the spiders will come.

When you post in Blogger, you can only “ping” a limited amount of sites, whereas with WordPress on your own domain you can ping as many blog directories as you want, and start getting more traffic.

As a conclusion, I would say that WordPress is only slightly ahead in terms of optimization for search engines, and building large amounts of traffic.

6) Money-Making Potential

There’s no doubt that it’s easier to get started with Google Adsense if you have a Blogger account. In fact you can now apply for Adsense from within a Blogger account. Not entirely surprising considering the fact that both are owned by the same company.

With WordPress, it can get tricky. The default installation is not enough. You’ll need a couple of plugins and even a better theme to really maximize the Adsense potential. However, this seems to be getting easier and there’s even “Adsense revenue sharing” plugins around that allow you to share ad revenue with other contributors and writers for your blog.

When you start using WordPress to build your Adsense websites, you’ll soon discover what I mean. It’s something you need to experience for yourself. I can tell you one thing though – when you go WordPress, you don’t go back.

New blog writers everywhere are faced with a serious dilemma when they first reach the Internet and must decide which blogging platform is best for their new website. There are actually dozens of options on the market, ranging from the basic blog settings of the social networks to the self-hosted open sources software solutions.
However, for most new bloggers and those who don’t want to pay for their blog, the choice boils down to one of two websites: Blogger and WordPress. These two services have become synonymous in recent years with the blogging phenomenon, making up a massive percentage of the Internet’s most popular blogs. For that reason, there has been a bit of discussion over which service is better.
Provided here is a solid answer to that question once and for all, 7 reasons why Blogger is in fact better than WordPress. These comparisons relate to the free accounts available from both Blogger and WordPress.
Integrated Login with Your Google Account
With the ability to easily connect all of your Google accounts, this is a big plus for Blogger. Many of the most useful features for a website are offered by Google, including AdSense, AdWords, and Webmaster tools for Google indexing. Instead of adding code into your templates, something that can quickly become confusing and result in broken websites, Blogger allows you to simply click a button and integrate AdSense or banners into your site.
This allows you to use the same login information for all Google services and that sets Blogger a few steps ahead. WordPress is an open sources solution, meaning that all extra services must be manually integrated into your blog after you have signed up for your account.
Backed up by Google
Along the same lines, Blogger has the backing of the largest and most powerful Internet Company in the world. For some this might seem like a negative, but it means the most money and development time can be placed into creating new features for Blogger that WordPress may need to wait for. Historically, features such as widgets, add-ons, and templates have been enhanced first by Blogger. WordPress is usually a step or two behind the curve. For the best features as they are developed, Blogger is the winner.
Change Visual Appearance and Code of Templates
Blogger’s options for making changes to the visual composition of your blog are numerous and easy to use, something that WordPress has had problems maintaining in the past. In Blogger, there are a number of pre-built templates as well as thousands more available from any number of websites. Simply copy and paste them into your blog’s template page and you have a new look. Additionally, the style sheets and HTML code for your template (if you are willing to do so) can easily be changed and enhanced to suit your specific needs.
Indexing Time
Whether it is because of the link with Google or because of the sheer volume of Blogger blogs, your posts will be indexed in the Search Engines much quicker with Blogger. Usually within a few hours of posting your newest page will appear, allowing you to receive the most traffic as quickly as possible. This is especially important as most blogs strive to talk about the newest and most relevant news as it breaks. If that news does not index for two days, it will already be old when people start to read your posts.
Ease of Use
Blogger is truly a plug and play design for a new blog owner. Signing up takes seconds, allowing users to use their Google login and asking only for a few basic pieces of information such as blog title and description. From there, blog posts can be typed up and entered with two or three clicks and are automatically indexed. For newcomers to the blogosphere especially, Blogger is the best choice when it comes to ease of use.
Integration of Multiple Accounts
Blogger makes it easy to view all of your blogs via a dashboard feature that links directly to your Google login. When you login, all of your blogs will display, with one-click options to post, edit, or alter posts. The number of blogs and accounts available is nearly endless and makes blogging on multiple topics easier than ever.
Massive Blogging Network
Because Blogger is the first stop for many new bloggers, it is also among the largest blogging networks in the world. The millions of blogs already created in Blogger are helpful to the new member as well because of how Google has integrated their search features into the site. Not only can visitors search Blogger blogs via the search bar at the top of the page, they can click “random” or “next blog” to visit a different Blogger blog. This increases your exposure by directly connecting you with existing blogs. And if you decide to hide this feature, you can do that too in Blogger.
Ultimately, Blogger is an ideal solution for anyone who is just starting their first blog. It is also a great platform for those who are serious about blogging, but do not want to hire a technician to set them up and make regular adjustments to their blog. It is easy to use, quick to start, and offers a host of features that the free WordPress blog and its other competitors do not.

Want to break into blogging but don’t know where to start? Dynamic duo Joelle Reeder and Katherine Scoleri of The Moxie Girls^TM show you how to start your first blog, polish your prose, get involved in blogging communities, make sense of RSS feeds, podcasts, photos and more — all with fun, humor and attitude!

Inside you will find the need-to-know info to get your blog noticed: How to choose the right blogging platform or content management tool, select a web host, dress up your blog, manage blog content and keep your privates private! When you are ready for more, The Moxie Girls will treat you to insider dish on blog etiquette, analyzing blog traffic, blogging for business, creating podcasts and adding bling to your blog with plugins, add-ons and more. Throw in the refreshing cocktails, beauty tips and gossip with the Girls at the end of each chapter and you’ll be Blogging with Moxie in no time. So, what are you waiting for?

The IT Girl’s Guide to Blogging With Moxie is packed with the content you need wrapped in casual, engaging dialog and a cheeky, bite-sized format.

• Bargain-blogging with tools such as WordPress®, TypePad®, and Vox
• Choosing a content management system like Expression Engine or Movable Type
• Managing blog content, using tags and moderating comments
• Selecting a professional designer and choosing from off-the-rack templates
• An introduction to podcasting and videocasting
• Finding, joining and managing blog communities
• Protecting your online identity
• Using a blog to better your business

Discover why bloggers love WordPress and make your blog the best it can be

Blogs are as much a part of life today as the evening newspaper was fifty years ago, and for much the same reason: Inquiring minds want to know. WordPress powers some of the most popular blogs on the Web, and with this guide to help, it can work for you, too. Here’s what WordPress does, how to set it up and use it, and some cool bells and whistles to make your blog stand out.

• Pick your flavor — decide whether to use the WordPress.com hosted service or self-host your blog with WordPress.org
• Customization — discover CSS and template tags and how to use them to create your own unique style
• Blogging 101 — find out about archiving, interacting with readers through comments, tracking back, and handling spam
• Host with the most — get the scoop on domain registration, Web hosting providers, basic tools like FTP, and more
• Do it yourself — install WordPress.org, set up a MySQL database, explore RSS feeds, and organize a blogroll
• Beef up your blog — insert audio, video, images, and photos
• Think theme — discover where to find WordPress themes, explore various options, and work with template tags to create a unique look

Open the book and find:

• Advice for creating a blog that draws readers
• Tips on managing comments, trackbacks, and spam
• How to use the Dashboard
• Wonderful widgets and plugins to add
• How to make permalinks work with your Web server
• The standard templates and how to tweak them
• Ten popular WordPress themes
• Where to find help when you need it

If you want to give yourself a Web presence without spending a lot of time or money, a blog is your answer and this is your guide. Blogs (Web logs) are short, diary-like entries on a Web site that has a chronological, journal format. Fun or informative, but not formal, blogs are easy to set up, maintain, and update. You can share your personal, stream-of-consciousness musings or your expertise on any subject ranging from your family vacation to world peace. This guide helps beginners (even technophobes) get started fast, with the essential info on:

• The elements of blogs, such as entries, sidebars, categories, comments, and index pages
• The different types of hosting services, from free to fee and from “turn key” services that are easy-to-use to DIY programs
• Details on two popular, free “social community” hosted Web services that are ideal for casual bloggers—MSN Spaces and Yahoo! 360
• The scoop on Blogger, a popular free hosted service that has some community tools like the social networks, but is basically blog-intensive
• DIY blogging, covering three of the most powerful and flexible blog programs—Movable Type, WordPress, and Radio Userland
• Hooking into RSS feeds to distribute your blog entries beyond your site
• Choosing a newsreader
• Ways to raise the visibility of your blog and make money from blogging

Complete with step-by-step instructions and lots of screen shots, this guide walks you through everything from setting up your blog and posting your first entry to adding photos, audio, and more. It includes the URLs of lots of sample sites to see to give you an idea of blog possibilities. In addition to the essential how-to, it fills you in on:

• The blogosphere, blog culture and etiquette, snarks, macrologues, and more
• Moblogs that let you post entries remotely using your portable computer, PDA, or cell phone
• Buying a domain through a registrar such as Network Solutions, Register.com, or Go Daddy
• MP3 blogs, vlogs (videoblogs), photoblogging, audioblogging, podcasting, and more

You know you have something to say, whether it’s heavy stuff or just your thought for the day. Make your opinions known. Get your photos shown. With Blogging For Dummies, you’ll soon be blogging with the best of ‘em.